When Father came marching home

Here is another excerpt from my book about father-daughter incest.

In 1945 when I was seven, the war ended and the men came home. What a strange time for the world. It was an era of post-traumatic stress disorders from the horrors of war. And for many it was a time of marital stress from too many years of living separate lives.

I don’t know how my parents’ marriage would have been different if it hadn’t been interrupted by the war. And I don’t know if my father would have relied less on rye and Coke to face his world. He had always been a party boy, but after the war he was seldom sober.

Each time he returned home during the war years I had initially been scared of him. He was huge. He could lift me up with one hand. Mostly I remember his smell. It was different from anyone else’s: a nose-tingling blend of the rough khaki wool of his scratchy uniform, the whisky on his breath and the ever-present Export A in his mouth.

Once he had been with us for a day or two, my shyness faded and I delighted in climbing into his giant lap.

When he returned home for good I experienced a strange mixture of fear and intense love. I wanted to be with him as much as possible. The most important thing in my young life was keeping Daddy happy.

Many years later, I learned he had another woman in England and that my role in the family, as my mother saw it, was to keep him home with us in Canada.

I grew up believing I was very fortunate to be my father’s companion. I thought I was lucky to go off camping with him, just the two of us.